De Correspondent aims to close the gap between readers and journalists

At the end of January, De Correspondent announced it had passed another milestone: 50,000 paying subscribers, growing from 42,000 members at the end of 2015.

The Dutch news website now counts more than 52,000 readers who pay monthly or annual memberships. Seventy-eight per cent of its subscribers pay €60 (£50) a year, while the remaining 22 per cent contribute €6 (£5) a month, Ernst-Jan Pfauth, co-founder and publisher of De Correspondent, said in a Medium post announcing the growth.

The post also outlined three areas the outlet will be focusing on in 2017: continuing to build trust in journalism by working with its audience, giving readers a way to build their reputation on the platform and experimenting with “more sustainable” formats beyond traditional articles.

“Trust in journalism is at a historical low, so we should start listening to our readers, and that philosophy of closing the gaps between journalists and readers has really been the core of our work,” Maaike Goslinga, international editor at De Correspondent, told Journalism.co.uk.
Here are some of the steps De Correspondent is taking to address these challenges: